Up and Down Wall Street

Full Credit, Partial Faith

The budget deal was just a start. Needed: realistic negotiating and politicians who act like grownups.

"I am not a member of any organized political party," Will Rogers famously declared. "I am a Democrat."

To maintain that status, the wry humorist of the past century would have to change his political affiliation today. After the feckless and ultimately fruitless efforts of House Republicans to scuttle Obamacare, by shutting down the government for more than two weeks and bringing the U.S. to the brink of default,...